


Data Not Found

by nightmare_kisser



Series: Robolock [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Androids, M/M, Robotics, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmare_kisser/pseuds/nightmare_kisser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having H.E.A.R.T. proves to be more trouble than it's worth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Data Not Found

**Author's Note:**

> Ever heard the song 'A New Friend' by I Hate This Place? No? Oh, well, you should. If you like techno-like music like Owl City.
> 
> I think this was meant to be serious, but it lost some of its mojo along the way. Oops. XD
> 
> Anyhow, this is the second installment of my Robolock (Robotic Sherlock) series.

Sherlock knows what is supposed to transpire. His father said as much, directly to John, and John must know that Sherlock had been listening, correct?

So why, then, does it appear as though John isn't going to follow through?

Sherlock paces the flat, hands behind his back, and keeps his machinery churning, whirring, humming. He stews in silence, a furrow in his brow, and his eyes steely and unblinking.

This is the state John finds in him hours later, after returning from everyday errands.

"Sherlock?" he says, and the android snaps into attention, stilling his movement and connecting gazes with John. "Are you okay?"

"No." He hesitates, mind freezing. He jerks stiffly and squares his shoulders. "Yes, I am. Never mind."

"You seem on-edge," John addresses while he puts away groceries. Leaving the non-refrigerated food to sit on the counter, he folds his arms over his chest and leans his hip against the table. "This has to do with our visit to your father the other day, doesn't it?"

"Yes. – No!" Sherlock corrects, hating that sometimes his program to tell the truth slips out when it shouldn't. It works well enough while he's "acting," putting on a façade for others to gain information from them, but not very well when he isn't on a case, is alone with people he knows well. Sometimes it makes him blunt, rude. Other times, like this instance, it makes him vulnerable.

John offers a small smile. "It's all right if it does. You can tell me."

Sherlock sags, defeated. He slumps down into his armchair and closes his eyes, tilting his head back. "Just tell me if it was true. Those things you said to describe me to my father. Did you mean them? With all your heart, as the saying goes?"

John could laugh. He doesn't. He enters the living room and kneels beside Sherlock's chair. "Yes, God help me, but I did."

"My brother told me that caring is not an advantage. I do not have the upper hand between he and I simply because I can feel something akin to emotion, and he cannot. But then, I have a friend, and he only has co-workers. I think that counts for something, in human logic," Sherlock murmurs. He sits up again, eyes opening, and steeples his fingers. He steals a glance at John. "I have an adaptation feature, but I'm not sure I can adapt to this. To this knowledge, to how our relationship might be altered."

John nods curtly. He stands. "If you feel that way, you can always delete it."

Sherlock jolts as if electrocuted, short-circuited. "You can't mean that. Surely that will affect you poorly?"

The doctor shrugs is off and his eyes look down and away. "I'll be fine. Don't worry about me."

"John –" Sherlock tries, frowning, his eyes searching John's entire body language for something recognizable. He blinks, for once baffled by which meaning he should be taking from this. Whether or not John is being sincere, wanting Sherlock to delete it, or solely saying it in comfort, wishing that Sherlock will protest. It's a toss-up between the two. John's face and body belie nothing as he returns his gaze to Sherlock and pins him there.

Sometimes, Sherlock can't help but feel a little proud of John for the way he confuses the cleverest detective in existence.

"All right, if that is what you think I should do in solution," Sherlock responds at length. He shuts his eyes, locates the file of the conversation he overheard, and deletes it. There. Gone. He can't even recall what it was he deleted; an audio file, but nothing specific. Opening his eyes again, it's as though Sherlock reboots. He looks to John and sees a worried expression on his face. "You should make yourself some tea, John. It might help calm you, whatever it is that ails you."

John sighs deeply and heavily, and Sherlock can almost feel the weight of that sigh on his own chest. John says, "Yes, that's a great idea. I'll make some tea." And he turns and busies himself in the kitchen for a while.

Sherlock rings Lestrade. He's bored. He could use a case, and he doesn't wish to wait for one to drop into his lap. Distantly, he hears the water simmering in the kettle.

-0-

"That's odd," Sherlock frowns as he looks over the evidence for a fifteenth time. "John, doesn't this seem odd to you? No matter how many times I read it over, something seems off, medically speaking, and –"

Silence.

Lestrade gave him a cold case from about a year ago, and Sherlock nearly has it. He needs a second opinion from John.

But John isn't anywhere in the flat. He can't hear him at all.

He quickly rewinds his memory to earlier in the day. Ah, there: this afternoon, John mentioned in passing that he was going out with a friend to lunch.

Sherlock glances at the clock. It's after eight p.m. That isn't right; lunch ended hours upon hours ago. John should be home. Even if he went out with someone for a drink, he would have said something. Texted, or called, or stopped by. But in all his memory, even when he checks his phone, Sherlock finds no trace of John having done so.

He tenses all over, his circuits lighting up. Danger. Something tells him that there is danger.

He whirls around just as he hears a whoosh of wind. A brick crashes through one of the windows – Mrs. Hudson is going tot hate that – and there is a note attached to it.

Sherlock runs to the window and yanks it upright, peers out of it, trying to catch a glimpse of who might have thrown it. His eyes shift to night-vision, then infa-red, then heat-seeking. There is a retreating figure, but he is too vague and far to zoom in on properly.

Dammit.

Growling, Sherlock clenches his teeth and slams the window shut, making more pieces of broken glass plummet to shatter on the floor. It crunches under his feet and he storms for the note, snatching it up and heading out the door.

-0-

John, it seems, has somewhat of a princess complex.

He is a decent fighter when he has his gun, but he was trained mainly as a doctor, not a combat specialist. And no human being can resist the affects of chloroform, no matter how hard they try, because every human needs to breathe in at some point.

And then, of course, this means John was kidnapped, criminals trying to lure in the great Sherlock Holmes and off him to make themselves famous, but it never truly works, because Sherlock is Sherlock, and Sherlock isn't human, and that gives him the upper hand. All those times John saved his life were probably pointless, but he likes to think Sherlock appreciates the gesture.

When Sherlock was given a ransom for John – "Your life for his, Mr. Holmes, and he must write about it to give us publicity. If neither happens, then we kill the doctor." – it's upsetting. Highly upsetting, in fact. Sherlock has never before felt such outrage. He storms out of the flat immediately and heads for the rendezvous point ahead of schedule.

He doesn't bother to phone Lestrade. He's taking matters into his own hands. He has a case, but he's nearly figured it out, and it doesn't matter right now, not when John's life is at stake.

These criminals are completely idiotic. They gave a location and time far too in advance, and this allows Sherlock to burst right in their hideout. They scramble, but Sherlock merely grins and proceeds to beat them unconscious.

"John? John!" Sherlock calls out loudly after the thugs are left groaning on the floor. They don't deserve fame. They are entirely incompetent as criminals and hardly deserve a slot in prison because they are such a waste of space and matter. They had delusions of grandeur, thinking they could kidnap John, force their numbers on him and a ransom for him, and be seen as these fantastic masterminds. What a joke.

Sherlock scoffs with disgust at the men on the floor and looks wildly around, x-raying the floor and walls and ceiling. But there are no bones to be found. John isn't here.

Sherlock stoops to one of the men and hoists him up by his shirt collar with one hand. "Where is he? Answer me, human! Where is my doctor?"

The small spits blood and laughs. _Laughs._ His smile is bloody and his teeth knocked in, and his eye is swollen and bruised, but still he laughs. "Did you really think we were stupid enough to keep him here? We wanted you here so we could kill you without you getting to him. And now I'm not telling you where he is. And our boss will see that we aren't showing up with your head in tow, and he'll kill 'im. Tough luck, mate." And he laughs more, choking a bit on his own blood.

Sherlock drops him to the floor, not fazed in the least by the crunch made by the man's leg breaking as he lands wrong.

Not so dumb, after all. No matter; Sherlock will find John. There are only so many places to look.

He starts by gathering what he can from the men's shoes, to see where they've been. He will have to make q quick analysis of it. Molly. Molly can help.

He whisks away, easy as that, and heads for Bart's.

-0-

An hour later, just before the meant rendezvous time, Sherlock has it. The right corner of London, the right basement. He gets a cab and races there.

-0-

John fades in and out of consciousness. Bollocks, how did he get himself in this situation? He was jumped by about four or five men, he remembers, and he didn't have his gun on him. Shit.

He feels ropes around his wrists, cutting into his skin, rubbing it raw. Around his legs, too, in two places. And there is a cloth gag in his mouth. Fucking brilliant. Where the hell is Sherlock? He should be able to find John, right?

…Right?

-0-

Two men with concussions and broken ribs, one with a busted lip and the other with shattered knuckles.

The "boss" is someone Sherlock recognizes. A mass murderer from a few years back. Parole? Or did he escape? Sherlock didn't bother to keep a record of him. He's someone from Sherlock's life before John came into it.

"I hard you got yourself a buddy, and I thought, why not take him away from you, like you made me lose my wife?" the "boss" says, and Sherlock refrains from rolling his eyes. It's the same old spiel, over and over again. Nothing changes.

"Within about five point three seconds, you will be on the floor bleeding." Sherlock cuts to the chase. He doesn't have time for this. "So before you are rendered unable to speak, I suggest you tell me where John is."

"If you take a step closer, I'll press this button," the man replies darkly, but his fingers are shaking. It's a button on his phone. "This will send a text for the man I have with your boyfriend to shoot him in the head. And you don't want that, do you?"

Sherlock twitches at the word 'boyfriend.' It sparks something in him, H.E.. interface kicking in. He scowls and, lightning fast – too quick for the human eyes to register in time to react – he whips out John's gun and shoots the phone out of the man's hand (blasting off a finger or two in the process. Whoops).

The man screams and drops to the floor, bleeding. Just as Sherlock promised.

"Now then," the consulting detective warns as he crouches down beside the criminal, "Where is John? In this basement, or one a few blocks or buildings over?" After all, his eyes can't x-ray through cement.

-0-

"Sherlock, thank God," John says breathlessly as Sherlock removes the gag first before going about sawing off the ropes from John's body. "What took you so long?"

Sherlock smiles. "Minor setback. Are you okay?" And he looks up then, and a passing thought crosses his metal mind: touch John's face. He doesn't.

"Fine, I'm fine," John giggles with relief. He takes Sherlock's hand and the taller man hauls him to his feet. He dusts himself off and smiles at Sherlock. "Do we need to call an ambulance for the bad guys?"

"Two. There are two different locations where I have left this gang bleeding out," Sherlock admits matter-of-factly. He touches John's shoulder, looks into his eyes. He broke a blood vessel in one, most likely from when he passed out – he smells of chloroform; Sherlock's sensors in his nose detects it – and it's made his eye blood red around one side of his iris. Behind them, the man wit the gun that was meant to kill John lies dead on the floor. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes, yes!" John says, and he's trembling, but not with shock or fear; it's adrenaline. "I'm only sad I didn't get to fight them with you! Never mention this again, yeah? Because I feel like a shitty excuse for a man, unable to fight off a few thugs while coming home in broad daylight…"

"How did they manage that, by the way?" Sherlock questions as he leads John out of the building.

"Alleyway. Van. Bad driving, I imagine," John snorts. "And outnumbering me, of course. With a damn sleep-rag to my nose, too." He sighs and shakes his head at himself. "Remind me to do the buddy-system next time. Apparently, even a grown man and ex-soldier can't be safe in London anymore."

Sherlock chuckles at that, grinning down at the blond beside him. He feels something rush through his wires beneath his skin. He licks his lips to prepare to speak. "John?"

"Yes?" the doctor replies as he turns his eyes to the detective, eyebrows quirked in silent question.

Sherlock blinks. He can't remember something. Did he delete it? Was it, in fact, important? He sighs. "Never mind." He keeps walking, looking ahead.

John feels as though he should say something, but he doesn't know where to begin.


End file.
